Barthelme's first novel, Snow White (1967), is a satiric and humorous retelling of the famous fairy tale, complete with dwarves and set in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood.

John Barth's writing has been described as similar to Barthelme's in that Barth, too, pursues uncommon ways of telling a story and using language. In 1968, Barth published a collection of short stories entitled Lost in the Fun House: Fiction for Tape, Print, Live Voice, considered by many to be a major work of experimental fiction.

Robert Coover is another writer who experiments with the content and structure of fiction. In his 1997 novel Briar Rose, Coover deconstructs and retells the story of Sleeping Beauty from the heroine's point of view. Coover plays with language and narrative and also offers readers a parody of literary scholarship.

Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology (1997), edited by...